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Baltimore is a popular tourist destination in Maryland, in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States of America, near Washington, D.C. It is perhaps most famously known as the city where Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner, and today has become a major center for tourism and travel.
It lies on the juncture of the Chesapeake Bay. With continuous nightlife, temperate climate, and plenty of hospitality, any time of the year is a great time to visit.
Baltimore has a long and rich history. It is very well-known for being the site of the historic Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. Over the course of the battle, British invaders bombed Read more
Baltimore is a popular tourist destination in Maryland, in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States of America, near Washington, D.C. It is perhaps most famously known as the city where Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner, and today has become a major center for tourism and travel.
It lies on the juncture of the Chesapeake Bay. With continuous nightlife, temperate climate, and plenty of hospitality, any time of the year is a great time to visit.
Baltimore has a long and rich history. It is very well-known for being the site of the historic Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. Over the course of the battle, British invaders bombed Fort McHenry with rockets as Francis Scott Key wrote what would become the American national anthem. Baltimore was also the site of the first casualty of the American Civil War.
It has a large African-American population that has played an important role in its history. African Americans have had a major presence in Baltimore since the Revolutionary War. During that time they were brought to Baltimore as slaves from Africa. Baltimore was also one of the hotbeds during the American Civil Rights movement and famous African-Americans such as Thurgood Marshall and Kweisi Mfume have made Baltimore their hometown. Rap and R&B artists such as Tupac, Dru Hill and Mario have also emerged from Baltimore. Currently, African-Americans form a majority (within the city limits) at 64%.
Baltimore lies in an arm of the Chesapeake Bay, the third largest estuary in the world. The eastern two-thirds of the metropolitan area lie on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, between 15 and 50 feet above sea level, and contain many peninsulas jutting out into the bay. The western third of the city slowly rises into rolling hills, and leads to the piedmont region. It is located about 40 miles from Washington, D.C., and approximately 100 miles from Philadelphia. The Atlantic Ocean lies about 2 hours to the southeast.
Baltimore lies within the humid subtropical climate zone, and weather is primarily affected by three factors: its proximity to a warm marine estuary, its low elevation, and the wall of mountains to the west and northwest. These factors make the area's climate milder and less extreme than other U.S. cities at this latitude. Summers are humid and hot, but not extremely so, with highs reaching the high 80s to low 90s Fahrenheit and lows in the 60s to low 70s. Winters are cool to mild and moist, with highs in the upper 40s to low 50s, and lows in the 30s and 40s. It is almost never below 10°F in the city proper. Light snow can sometimes fall in winter, although some years there is no significant accumulation and once every few years a coastal storm can dump 8 inches to a foot of snow on the city. Spring and fall bring pleasant temperatures in the 50s-70s(°F), and southern breezes.
While weather in the region can vary, Baltimore does not experience the extremes of weather change that occur further north and inland. Visitors will be able to venture outdoors without a jacket from approximately mid-March to late November. The hot humid summers invite the wearing of shorts on many days. The Baltimore area experiences pleasant fall foliage, usually beginning in mid October and ending in early December. The long warm weather season means that swimming pools are very popular for much of the year as well.
Baltimore boasts a surprisingly influential, albeit small-scale, film industry. Self-dubbed the "grandfather of filth" native John Waters is the Baltimore equivalent of New York's Woody Allen — he has directed movie after movie, set and filmed on location in Baltimore, drawing heavily for inspiration from Baltimore's most bizarre subcultures and its strangest neighborhoods. He became famous for his "gore" flicks in the 1970s, which combine the single-minded purpose of grossing-out (or perhaps scarring-for-life) the viewers along with intensely bad acting, outrageous Baltimore accents, subversive humor, general trashy perversion and violence, and one enormous Baltimore drag queen named Divine. Of this era, Pink Flamingos achieved a certain cult-classic status, although it is absolutely not for the faint of heart (or the pure of spirit).
Waters' films post-1970s mellowed out dramatically, albeit still maintaining his signature interest in subversive campiness, culminating in his most famous work, Hairspray, a 1962-fabulous story of a plus-size girl with plus-size hair who wanted to bring a black boy to the locally-televised dance show against the forces of racial segregation and bigotry. He has gained considerable success within the Manhattan art world for his more recent work across all sorts of mediums—but he rails against that same art world in Pecker, a movie soaked in the local colors of Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood. His dogged loyalty to his city has earned him a lot of goodwill here. A recent mayor proposed creating a local John Waters holiday, and the Hampden neighborhood erected a giant pink flamingo statue up on the main street. But don't let all this lull you into a sense of complacency — unless it's Hairspray or perhaps Crybaby and maybe Serial Mom, don't show his films to your kids!
Barry Levinson, is perhaps the most well-known film maker to come out of and make films about Baltimore. His directing career began with Diner, a movie set in the Baltimore of his youth, and a movie that would begin the famous four-movie series of "Baltimore films" along with Tin Men, Avalon, and Liberty Heights.
Another big name in Baltimore film-making is undoubtedly David Simon, famous for his Baltimore-centric crime dramas Homicide: Life on the Street (which he co-produced with Barry Levinson), and, of course, The Wire, which has been called by nearly every major journalistic publication in the English language "the best show on television" — although several have contended this doesn't go far enough, calling it the best TV series of all time. The Wire is set principally in the most blighted neighborhoods of West Baltimore, dealing with startlingly realistic, cliché-less portrayals of the life of the city's (and America's) underclass and the drug crime that pervades the neighborhoods and housing projects that underclass lives in. A veteran reporter for the Baltimore Sun and a novelist in his own right, Simon also turns his camera on the city government, the police department, and the public schools, and never in too favorable of a light. (If you are a fan of the series, check out The Wire Tour!) For an even starker portrayal of life and drugs in Baltimore's most blighted neighborhoods, check out his documentary-style miniseries, The Corner.
Don't let these crime dramas get you down, though, most city visitors are unlikely to have any encounters with the drug trade or really much anything to do with Baltimore culture for that matter. All the more reason why The Wire is practically required reading for a serious visitor — the show is filmed on location throughout the whole city, and nowhere else will you be so quickly and delightfully introduced to Baltimore in all its local character and sense of place: Baltimore club music, beautiful and dilapidated old row houses with marble stoops, the legendary horse-cart fruit vendor, coddies and pit beef, bottles of rye by the docks, the East-West rivalry, all sorts of local hip hop, a few good corrupt Polish cops, some angry young boys in the projects, and above all that sense of restlessness that keeps this city alive.
Public transportation in Baltimore is nothing spectacular. You can buy the pass from any bus operator or vending machine at subway/light rail stations.
As a general rule, the light rail 13 system is far more useful for getting into the city than getting around it. You may wish to park outside the city (for free!) and take the light rail in. The one useful section runs from Camden Yards up past Lexington Market to the Station North Arts District.
Unlike the MTA, the recently-launched Charm City Circulator 16 is a city-run service. And unlike the MTA, the Circulator is free.
Funded by parking taxes, several routes are now online. The Orange Route runs east to west from Hollins Market to Harbor East. The Purple Route runs north to south between Penn Station and Federal Hill.
A third route, The Green Route, runs mostly east of downtown, serving Power Plant Live, Fell's Point, and the Johns Hopkins medical complex. The Banner Route, running from the Inner Harbor to Ft. McHenry hits the roads in June 2012. The buses, smaller and quieter than the MTA trains, but more stylish and fun to ride, are ideal for people staying downtown looking for a very economical way to get out towards Fell's Point, Federal Hill, Mount Vernon and other areas underserved by the MTA.
If staying outside the city and taking Light Rail or Metro Subway in, the Circulator routes were thankfully designed to coordinate with key stops like Baltimore Street, North Howard Street (along which the Light Rail runs), Charles Center and the Convention Center.
Pay parking garages and lots are easy to find near all major sights in the city center, usually charging parking rates commensurate with proximity to the Inner Harbor. For exploring Baltimore beyond the central neighborhoods a car becomes essential, and on-street parking is widely available beyond Downtown and the Inner Harbor. If you don't have a car, taxi cabs are an excellent way to get from point to point, albeit a rather expensive one. Don't expect to be able to hail a cab outside any except the most central neighborhoods.
One of the most popular (and unique!) modes of transportation in Baltimore is the water taxi system 17 +1 410 563-3901. Rarely a useful mode of transport for everyday life, it is an especially nice way of touring the city's main sights for a day (and admiring the skyline from the water). From May-September, it stops throughout the Inner Harbor, Fell's Point, Fort McHenry, and even Canton, at intervals of about 15-20 minutes.
In cooperation with the Charm City Circulator system, some routes across the harbor are also free from 7 AM to 7 PM, including Maritime Park, Tide Point, and Canton Waterfront Park.
As Baltimore is a predominantly African American city, there are many opportunities to experience African American history in this town. The most prominent is the Great Blacks in Wax Museum located on East North Avenue in East Baltimore close to Johns Hopkins University. This museum showcases African American History through art. Another site of interest may be the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Black History located close to the Harbor Area.
The Baltimore Harbor is the busy center to the city, a major tourist attraction, a must-see, often featuring live music by jazz groups and crooners and plenty of eating and shopping. While locals scorn the Inner Harbor as a pre-fabricated tourist mecca devoid of true Baltimore culture, visitors should see the harbor, and especially should visit some of its excellent museums and other attractions. Highlights range from the Historic Ships in Baltimore (including the USS Constellation), the kid-mesmerizing Maryland Science Center, to the crowded and enormous National Aquarium, to the radically eccentric American Visionary Art Museum.A wide variety of dining options can be found in Baltimore, but no visit to Maryland is complete without a sampling of the local favorite: steamed crabs! Though by and large the crabs no longer come from the Chesapeake Bay (they are shipped from North Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas due to pollution in the Bay), it remains a popular summertime activity to spend the afternoon with family and friends at a crab feast. Often crabs are accompanied by steamed shrimp, corn on the cob, and beer.
If steamed crabs are too adventurous, you should at least sample a crab cake, crab bisque, or vegetable crab soup.
Then again, if crabs aren't adventurous enough, there is an impressive range of strange local foods that most visitors never hear about. The preeminent among which is the Baltimore pit beef sandwich. An odd tradition born of the meeting of the American barbecue world with the culinary tastes of Baltimore's Polish immigrants, the pit beef is slowly barbecued all day and night in a deep pit, then put on a kaiser roll, plus onions and horseradish to your liking (don't wuss out on the horseradish—it's an integral part of the experience). It's best served very rare. Unfortunately, pit beef can be hard to come by within the city limits. The favorite pit beefery is probably Chaps, located next to an industrial area on the extreme east of the city.
Vying for local fast food preeminence is Baltimore Lake Trout. It's not trout (rather, whitefish), and it doesn't come from a lake. But it is impressively fresh, lightly breaded, surprisingly not so greasy, and just all around finger-licking good. It is sort-of served in a sandwich, but you get such a huge quantity of fish in there (for chicken-feed), it's not possible to eat it like a sandwich. Lake Trout takes you far from East Baltimore's pit beef into the west side, but where to get the best fish is a matter of contention. The most accessible, and visitor-friendly, is a regular contender for the crown — The Roost.
Coddies represent the final major player in local fast food lore. Nothing fancy here—it's a thick, satisfying codcake served in a sandwich of two saltine crackers, and the coddie should be topped with simple yellow mustard. They can be hard to find, but you'll get great ones at Faidley's for absurdly low prices.
The market place, near the harbor, is full of fresh seafood and food bars. But for a more local experience, head to the neighborhoods surrounding it: Little Italy, Fell's Point, Federal Hill, Canton, Mount Washington, etc. all feature both local and international cuisine.
The two neighborhoods with the largest concentrations of drinking establishments and clubs are Fell's Point and Powerplant Live! Other fine wining (or boozing) and dining neighborhoods include Canton Square, Mt. Vernon, Federal Hill, Hampden, and the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. Baltimore is also the home of the oldest Irish pub in the United States, Patrick's of Pratt Street, established in 1847.
Fell's Point is the city's most popular district for both eating and drinking, it is located about a 15 min walk from downtown or a short cab ride. Many bars in this area feature live music and most have excellent selections of Maryland and imported craft beers. The Full Moon Saloon on Aliceanna Street brings outstanding blues artists to the stage, while the Cat's Eye pub on Thames (pronounced as it is spelled, not like the river in London) has jazz and blues. Also be sure to visit Bertha's on Broadway, John Steven Ltd. on Thames, and Max's Taphouse for the widest beer and shooter selection plus Quiz-a-ma-jig trivia every Thursday night.
Max's on Broadway is Baltimore's veritable beer museum, with a long list of hard-to-find beers from around the world.
Powerplant Live! is an area just off of the Inner Harbor that has two blocks of nothing but bars, clubs, and restaurants. It has an outdoor area that has music and other events during good weather. Drinks and food are low quality and overpriced (since there is an unending stream of tourists unfamiliar with the city strolling in), but even the most hip Baltimore hipsters will find themselves here every now and then for the live performances at Rams Head Live!, and for pizza and drinks at Joe Squared afterward.
Brewer's Art on Charles St specializes in Belgian ales. Cross Street Market in bar-saturated Federal Hill has a fine sushi and raw bar, and an excellent happy hour on Friday.
National Bohemian (affectionately known as 'Natty Boh') is the popular local cheap beer.
Please note that all bars in Baltimore (and the state of Maryland) are completely non-smoking.
Baltimore's reputation as a dangerous city was cemented internationally by the HBO series The Wire, not far from the truth. Its nickname, the "Charm City", has been updated by local cynics as the "Harm City," and you can probably find an I *heart* Baltimore t-shirt for sale in which the heart is made of guns and knives. An even less inviting nickname of recent years is the grisly "Bodymore." The reputation is in no small part due to its very high murder rate and its status as a major transit point for drugs. The reputation is warranted, but the average traveler should not get overly concerned. Most crime is drug-related and occurs between individuals who know each other or in high crime-ridden areas of the city, in which tourists would have little reason to go to. Few, if any, travelers have any experience with that isolated culture of drug and gang-related activity, in which the murders usually occur. Muggings are the crime for tourists to be concerned with, however.
The areas of Baltimore that attract tourists are safe, and you can safely go to the opera, museums, aquarium, etc. The popular Inner Harbor area, in particular, is full with police day and night, as the city government relies heavily on this area to bring in locals and tourists and generate tax revenue. Some areas just north of the waterfront (downtown above the Inner Harbor around Lexington Market, and around the big public housing projects just northeast of Little Italy) can get a little dodgy after dark, even during the day sometimes.
If you park your car on any street in the Charles Street entertainment district or even in Fell's Point, leave nothing, even trash, to reduce the chance of smash-and-grab robberies. Generally, the worst annoyance for tourists and residents around downtown are the homeless and/or drug addicts, who ask for money. Most will leave you alone after you give something or nothing. Still, if someone follows you asking for money, ignore the person and keep walking, as they almost always give up after a few seconds. Avoid confrontations or yelling back.
Above all, though, just exercise the usual precautions for any large city in the world. Know where you are going and how you are getting there. At night, walk in groups if possible and on well-lit streets. Do not carry large amounts of money. Call a cab if the trip back at night seems beyond your comfort zone.
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April 15, 2021
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Dear friends! Today we are going to check the list of the Top-10 places to visit in Baltimore , Maryland! Let’s begin! Baltimore can be deservedly called the city of sailors, blue crabs, and Edgar Allan Poe. All of them have significantly affected some of the Baltimore’s aspects... |
Images from the southern part of
Baltimore city. This was the site of the Baltimore riots earlier in the year.
There are a lot of respected churches in the neighborhoods.
Churches are in better condition than many other buildings in the area:
Although there... |
Baltimore
is the largest city in Maryland, located near the Chesapeake Bay where the battle for American Independence took place in 1781. Now Baltimore is home to a large African-American population (over 60%). Recently this city became known worldwide because of the riots that took place in... |
Being that Maryland is known for its seafood, some of the best local dishes include crab meat. Crab cakes are served in almost every restaurant. However it is widely known that the best crab cakes aren't found in the
Baltimore restaurants, but at the local
Lexington market... |
The largest city in Maryland is Port City, associated with the life and death of Edgar Allan Poe.
Nowadays
Baltimore
is not the most visited place in America. The bus station in
Downtown Baltimore
, allows you to travel to the center of the city in just one bus! ... |